Traveling Along Through Africa

Coming into Bejumbura, Burundi last week all I could see was miles of desert plains.  Even flying in, I could feel the dirt, dust, and poverty from high above the region…with all the tin roofs and small shed buildings on small, less than acre “farms” and the dirt roads criss-crossing everywhere.  We then road into the city, which was very dusty and trashy, but amidst it all, we climbed out of our taxi with it’s grimy, ripped up seats and followed the driver through a little alley-way into the most amazing little hotel equipped with not only a hot shower and wonderful bed, but internet and amazing French food!  After more than 50 hours of travel this was our sweet reward.  No need to tell you, we were wasted and slept for a good 24 hours, but then were surprisingly refreshed and ready to go…

All that to tell you that I had no idea what poverty looked like.  That was last week and Burundi before The Crossing. Now let me tell you about this week and after The Crossing!  The moment we got into DRC, everything abruptly changed…no more pavement for starters…only dirt and rocks, big ones!  In Uvira there is one main, paved road, even though it’s a city of 400,000, which means everything else is dirt, dust and rocks.  It’s the very beginning of rainy season, so once a day it rains for a while and the dust is subdued for a short hour or so, and then because of the intense heat and wind coming off Lake Tanganyika it quickly stirs up again.

There are three markets in Uvira, and no, I’ve not been allowed to go to one, even yet!  I spied a beautiful basket as we sped along one day that cost a whopping $1 U.S., but the oger I get to travel with put the kabash on that one right away (I think it was the size or something. Yes, the same oger who was all upset about the teddy bear.).  We had hoped to stay in a decent, safe hotel in town and got all settled in only to discover there was no water.  So, after much ado, oh my gosh, so much ado, we were able to move to another hotel, fortunately with water.  The only glitch is that the water is downstairs in the water tank, but no matter, they do help us with bringing the full tub back up the three flights of stairs.  And, the bonus is that when the electricity is working, and when the stars are lined up and the intercessors are praying, then the water system does work!  Well, kind of, sort of.  It doesn’t actually come out of the sink faucet or the shower faucet. It comes out of the bidet faucet, if there was a bidet, so I guess it comes out of the toilet faucet. But, we are THRILLED when it works, which is usually around 10 p.m., if it’s going to work, so we take turns standing in the “tub” and soaping up and spraying down.  Oh, did I tell you the toilet seat is broken, so when you sit on it, your booty gets a nice little pinch?  Both sides!  Nice!  All of this for $35 and, yes, of course, breakfast is included!!

We are adjusting well, though, and have become accustomed to “Bonjour, Madame”,  or “Jambo”, etc., as French and Swahili are spoken here and the fish from the lake is fantastic – and it’s a good thing as it’s the mainstay along with rice and beans and “chips”.   Stephen, our contact, and lead church planter has been incredibly supportive and helpful in every way.  The main conference was very well attended and now we are in the middle of the trainings for his church planters.   The people are warm, friendly, passionate, even though their country has been through more than you or I could ever possibly imagine.   I know I always say this about everywhere I go, but this time I really mean it, I truly do wish I could live here.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Great Experiences! No Time for Writing Yet!

Sidenote: pictured above with me is NOT a child.  This is 20-year-old David from one of the Pygmy tribes in the Congo.  Yes, he is 20 years old; he is completing his high school education this year with plans to enter law school so that he can defend his own people in legal matters.  His people experience a lot of prejudice here.

Hopefully Brooks will get some updates out as I have not had time, yet, to write.  We have faced a few challenges in the Congo only because we have not traveled here before.  But our times with leaders and in ministry to a neighboring village has been wonderfully exciting and we are seeing God at work beyond our expectations.

Will write more when I have time…

Border Crossing

We made it through! What an adventure! Stephen, Justin, Roger and I, along with our driver, all piled into a taxi (the size of a small subaru station wagon) with all of our things and drove from Buja Town, they call Bujumbura, up and around the tip of Lake Taganyika over to the border of Burundi and the Congo, where piles of cars were lined up helter skelter making no sense whatsoever with various folks squatting along the side of the road roasting sticks of meat or selling vegetables and then a few dirty concrete buildings along to the left side of the road, no doors, just openings with a few official people sitting behind desks in them. Up ahead was an old rickety metal pole barrier signifying no crossing til you were officially let through with a couple of police decked out in blue uniforms with pants tucked neatly in their boots and berets on their heads, while they proudly carried their machine guns. So, Stephen led us into one of the buildings where a Burundise official checked out our passports, greeted us in French, and waved us through and off we went….walking ahead and waited for our taxi to come through the barrier.

Then, we all piled back in and I thought we were good to go, but oh no, we were only in the free zone—the in-between zone between Congo and Burundi! Up until now we had been on a paved road, passing poor, poor villages with lots of people walking or riding their bikes with huge bundles of wood or vegetables piled on themselves or their vehicles. Now we were on a partially paved, partially dirt road and approaching another barrier, that looked even more feeble than the one before, but a barrier nevertheless. There were similar structures to the left only these, too, were quite a few steps down from the buildings before, if that could even be possible. They were smaller, dirtier and barely standing. Out we all piled again. This time into the Congolese border crossing. I hadn’t realized we had to cross out of Burundi and then into Congo—two separate crossings! We stepped into one small room where Stephen handed the official our passports. He laughed afterwards saying the officials were so interested in “the visitors”, that they took little interest in him or Justin today! They then led us into an even tinier room where there were two obviously much more important officials sitting behind their desks and to my great comfort two French men and a very decked out French woman all squished in there, too. Without much hesitation, our passports were quickly leafed through, thanks to the thoroughness of my beloved having done his homework and we had gotten our invitation and visas done ahead of time and paid for, so with a quick stamp/stamp and a merci, off we went.

Again, I thought we were done and off, but no, not yet…we went out to the taxi, pulled up in the rocky dirt parking lot in front of the building and about five officials asked which bags were mine. So, they pulled mine out of the car, along with Roger’s and took them into yet another dirty, tiny little room and slung them up on a table. Seriously, there must have been about five guys in there looking in Roger’s suitcases. They barely looked through them and then sent him out. Then all of the sudden all the guys left the room, with just me standing in there and a female official comes swiftly in, big smile on her face and unzips my suitcase. She’s chit-chatting scantily in English as she’s pawing through my stuff and then she says, “Please don’t you have any lotion, just a small bit of some lotion?” I can’t believe it…lotion, lotion, lotion, do I have any? If I do, do I want to give it to her? I asked her, “Do you have any babies?” “Yes,” she says. So, I quickly handed her one of the beanie baby teddy bears I had brought for a gift and she giggled and giggled with delight. Small price to pay, I’d say. So much for all of Roger’s, “Do you have to bring all this stuff?” wouldn’t you say???

So we are here, safe and sound, in Uvira. Already had to change hotels because the first one, the nice one, didn’t have any water….but that’s a whole other story….we’re still blessed…and pray you are, too.

Pray for Border Crossing

We have arrived in Bujumbura (Burundi) for a couple of days to recover from jet lag, lack of sleep, swollen feet (Brooks), and two days of sitting in airline seats.  OK, it’s not really as bad as it sounds, but why not play it up?

Our team leader from the Congo, Steven, will pick us up tomorrow to travel across the border into his country.  This is probably our most difficult border crossing because of the instability of the country and the corruption of officials (like border patrols).  Thus, our request for your specific prayers.

We are very excited to soon be re-united with our Congolese friends and to meet many new leaders there who are bearing fruit in a very troubled country.

Stay in touch!  Roger

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Thoughts Prior to Leaving For Africa

In the early morning hours, as I (Brooks) still lay in bed, the familiar knot started to swell in my stomach as I started thinking about our upcoming trip to Africa.  Was it fear?   Going into the Congo is kind of scary. Was it anxiety?  Lots to do and lots on my mind.  Was it sadness to be leaving home?  Always hate to say good-bye, especially to my kids.  I was actually trying to figure it out.  What was going on with me?  Typically, a few weeks away from going on a big overseas trip, I’m pretty excited—stressed, oh yeah, sure.  There’s always the yellow legal pad with the various lists on it:  one labeled: work stuff, another: shopping yet to do, which always includes yet one more trip to Walmart; another: miscellaneous items like washing the dog, get medications and so on.  I had my yellow pad and I had all my lists and my calendar was pretty well filled up til the minute we leave, but no, none of that was what was causing the pain in the pit of my stomach.

You know how you burned your finger once and then you burn it again…then you think to yourself, “Wow, this hurts — just like the last time.”  Then you remember exactly what was going on when you burned it before.  Well, that’s what happened when I started feeling this pain.  It wasn’t like other pain, like oh, my daughter’s been hurt, or I’m in a scary situation, but it most definitely was like pain I had felt before.

I started to see pictures, like a movie of all the many places we have been, like the Philippines and Thailand, Laos, Madagascar and South Africa.  These are places I don’t think about much as I go in and out of my every day life, but they are very real places, filled with very real people.  Sure, there are lots of people there who are living the good life, I suppose, although I’ve not met them or seen them.  But what I have seen are the poor, the desperate, the destitute.  I’ve seen the hungry, the lonely, the hopelessly abandoned and forgotten.  The heartbreak of the cries and the filthy stench of poverty are overwhelming.  This was the feeling I had come to know from previous trips.  Could I do it again?  Could I face the realities of going into these developing countries and the people who are trying to literally survive in them? Help!  I must brace myself for what I know is coming.  It’s going to be awful; it’s going to be heinous and horrible, and I can do nothing to help, to meet the needs.  There are simply so many—everywhere.  But then, I began to breathe again.  One breath, then two, then three, and I heard in my spirit.  Just one.  You can speak to just one.  You can love just one.  I was just One.  Jesus impacted the entire world and He was just One.

–Brooks

Unsubscribe From the Travel Blog

If you receive this post by email, it is because you previously subscribed to our personal travel blog.  PLEASE FEEL FREE to take this opportunity to UNsubscribe if you do not wish to receive our personal ramblings as we travel through Africa over the next couple of months.

YOU WILL NOT OFFEND US IF YOU UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS PARTICULAR LIST. These writings are sometimes lengthy, always un-edited, and definitely unfiltered.  We simply process our experiences on the road…  So, you have been warned; you make the choice!

If you unsubscribe from THIS email list, you will still continue to receive ALL of our truly pertinent updates.

Pamela

Meet my new friend Pamela.  Her husband went to seminary and was trained as a Baptist pastor.  He and his wife pastored a church for some time, but have transitioned into simple church and are now planting churches in a village near Kitale.   It’s a very poor area with red dirt streets, trash strewn all about, goats, chickens and cows ambling about, while children play football in vacant lots and men and women walk very intentionally going about their business.

We were at Pamela and Kefir’s house yesterday for house church.  Their home is in a string of several other connecting homes, facing other identical homes separated by just a few feet of dirt.  It has two dark rooms, divided by a curtain.  One room is their bedroom; the other is the sitting room by day, and a bedroom for nine-year old Audrey by night.  Each room measures about 8 x 10. 

It was so good to be with them.  Pamela, as you can see, is a beautiful young woman, and her husband adores her. He is so humble, and she is such a woman of gentleness and faith.  Pamela and Kefir are typical of the Kenyan culture, which I have come to appreciate and love.  They are soft-spoken, often speaking in low tones, but with such conviction and passion.

While we were together, I asked Pamela about her children.  She said she had Audrey, but that she had also lost a boy who was three months old.  She had had to have a C-section and there had been complications.  This was almost two years ago.  Even though she was smiling, it was obvious that she was understandably still grieving over the loss of this boy.  But, then the words just began tumbling out of her as her story continued.  She had started to feel sick and been to seek medical help.  She wanted me to understand that she had read in a paper from the U.S. that women there could go to a clinic and get a screening for female problems, and that this is available for any woman, but here in Kenya, this is impossible.  When she goes to the doctor, there are many lines and she must stand in a line, and even your husband cannot stand in line with you, no matter how sick and weak you are.  And then they yell at you, “Go to this line, go to that line!”  Finally, maybe you can see the doctor and he will tell you what kind of medicine you need and ask you if you can afford 400 shillings.  When you say yes, he will give you a prescription, but when you go to the pharmacy, they will tell you the cost is 1200 shillings, so there is no possibility of you being able to pay for it.

So, Pamela was telling me that she was so ill that she couldn’t do any work at all.  She was so desperate that finally she gave in and went to the doctor.  After standing in all of the different lines, she met with the doctor.  He told her that she had fibroid tumors on her uterus and she needed to have surgery.  He also told her that she was pregnant, and that she was anemic–and that she has malaria.  The doctor wanted to do surgery to take out the tumors, but, of course, that would mean that she would lose the child, so Pamela told the doctor, “No, I am going home!”  She said first of all, there was no way she wanted to lose the baby.  Secondly, there was no way to pay for the surgery or the medicines for the other problems.  She said I have nothing; I have only God, but He is enough.  So she went home, went to bed and started to pray.  As she was telling her story, I couldn’t help, but remember the miracle God had done in my own life when I was her age and my excitement began to grow as she continued to tell her story.  “So, God visited our house and the bleeding that was happening stopped.  And if God had not healed me, I would not be able to visit with you this day or prepare a meal for you or tell you about this thing He has done for me.”  And, so I did rejoice with her and told her a small bit of my own story some 35 years ago, and yes, because of God’s miracles, we were actually able to be able to sit together in her living room that day and share our lives with each other and talk about this awesome God and the miracles He had performed in our lives!

But, that isn’t the end of Pamela’s story.  Pamela speaks beautiful English…as well as Swahili and her native tribal language.  But somewhere along the line, we misunderstood what she had spoken.  This was not a story that happened a year or two ago.  This is a story that is currently happening.  This is Pamela’s life today.  She is standing on God’s promises today for her own health, for the health and birth of her baby.  She had been to the doctor last week and found out all of this news.  God is currently healing her and raising her up.  Last week she couldn’t get out of bed and yesterday she was in the “kitchen” in the backyard preparing a meal for us.  Kefir was helping her, which is VERY unusual in the Kenyan culture for a man to be helping the woman, so I know he is still quite concerned about her health and that she is still not fully recovered, even though she is doing so well.

When we learned of our misunderstanding, we asked if we could pray for her-Anny (one of the Congolese visiting team members) and myself, as the only women present.  It was awesome!  We look forward to the birth of this special little one and Pamela’s full recovery and healing.  Please pray with us for this very humble, precious family:  for the birth of their baby and for their spiritual babies and church plants in their community as well.

Beauty In the Midst of It All

As we were driving from one location to another, I was reflecting on some of the things I have seen and heard in the last week or so as we meet people and travel here in Kenya.  In many ways it all seems a bit surreal as we were asking our friend who was driving about the politics in Kenya.  Here it is fourteen months after the election that caused all the civil unrest here in Kenya or what they refer to as the post-election violence or the “clashings”, and still it is a country very much unsettled.  The very first day we were here we picked up the newspaper and the headlines read of political conflict between the two parties in power, so it seems that even though there is peace for the moment, at any second, things could erupt between the two tribes that originally started all the warfare throughout the country.  Our friend concurred that yes, for the differing tribes, they are silently waiting to see what happens.  It seems that one tribe politely avoids the other because it’s very obvious that this is a country that is at peace only by the grace of God and who knows for how long.

I couldn’t help but shudder as even during this conversation we passed a huge billboard sign that announced to the world “Real Men Don’t Rape”.   Strangely, I don’t particularly feel unsafe being here in Kenya, I just feel that this is a country that is giving me a picture of what life is like in many parts of the world, particularly war-ravaged Africa.  Right now Kenya is also suffering a famine due to the drought.  Last year they suffered from civil war – killings, rapes, burning of churches, homes, living in refugee camps; this year drought and political unrest with the threat of more civil war.  And, there is always the ongoing problem of poverty, poor education, sickness, and disease. 

And yet, when I spoke with my Kenyan friend about these things, she merely said, “This is the life of the African woman.  We don’t think about these things.  We work hard and we expect to work hard.”  I couldn’t believe it, really.  Here she is-a woman who is very intentional about her life of hard work…and, of all things… “looking smart”.  She has three young children, has a cosmetics shop in town, and can easily walk to and from town carrying packages or sacks of potatoes on her head.  Today she even killed a chicken, plucked it and cooked it over an open fire, along with french fries, for our lunch meeting-all wearing her “smart” outfit, covered up by her lesso “apron”. 

So, I guess for me this time, I have a fresh perspective on the Kenyan woman’s outer appearance.  Many of them wear colorful clothes, some with babies snuggled securely to their backs, many balancing wood, or water jugs on their heads, and then the modern woman who has a suit and heels and beautifully styled hair – plaited or wigged, up or down, but not a hair out of place.  In a life that is so extremely difficult, with so much ugliness all around them, they are like beautifully chiseled Rodin statues gracefully walking about town, giggling and laughing and going about their lives.  Even though they face unimaginable hardships, these soft-spoken, strikingly attractive women adorn themselves with vibrant color and trinkets, as they can.  The world around them is so dark, so hopeless, so bleak, but they brighten their world by speaking of who they really are…the true jewels of Africa.

Building Next Door Exploded

We had just welcomed the Congolese leaders to Kenya and the hotel where they were to stay when the building next door exploded into a fireball.  We do not know the cause of this explosion yet.

It was quite a riot on the streets and a miracle that we got out before the hotel we were in began to burn.  THIS was the start of our time with these leaders who traveled for three days to be with us!

OBVIOUSLY,  we appreciate your ongoing prayers for us and for this leadership team.

(This picture was taken by my phone and does not really capture the magnitude of the damage that was done by the initial explosion)

Missionary Sending City

We have been drawn to the city of Kitale as a hub for our work in Kenya not realizing that it is destined to become a center for sending missionaries throughout Kenya and even Africa.  Prophetic words have been spoken over this city to this end.  Additionally, in the last few years Kenyans from Kitale have moved to many cities throughout Kenya to start churches or ministries.  We have personally met some amazing Kenyans from Kitale who are being sent to do missions work in some of the most difficult countries of Africa such as Southern Sudan.

So, having learned this, we should not be surprised that the leaders we are working with have hearts to plant churches in many different regions of Kenya as well as surrounding nations.  I must tell you that this is very, very gratifying.

Two of the leaders we are working with will be sent out very soon to two different cities in Kenya.  Other churches are starting locally.  Still another family is doing a new work in a Muslim village in the Mombasa area.  And… two leaders from Uganda are visiting this week’s conference with a desire to see more churches planted in their region.  For this growing group of leaders, this type of activity is becoming routine.  We feel privileged to be involved in what is becoming a true mission-sending base.  I hope that you also feel blessed with us since you are a part of what God is doing here!